The alien was in the middle of routine every millennium universe rounds – he stopped by Earth.
He was surprised to find very little progress since the last check-in.
Typically as beings mature they desire less individuality, not more.
He noted the unique anomaly, and hoped to see improvement for next 1000 year rounds.
Probate resolved, crossing the front door threshold, she felt the emptiness.
A home, transformed back to only its structure, simply a house.
A kitchen with no smell and warmth, only utility.
The dishwasher cycle stating complete.
Echoing that the cycle was finished.
Ready to be emptied.
She wept.
I find it curious how Americans can so confidently deride other countries’ antiquated policies and draconian laws, while ignoring our own. Everyone is quick to point out Saudi Arabia’s intolerance towards women,¹ or Cambodia’s discomfort with provocative dancing,² and yet we pay no mind to the millions of men and women serving jail time for marijuana. Marijuana is considered a class I drug right next to heroin, yet it is medically legal in 26 states. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, marijuana arrests accounted for nearly half of all drug arrests in the country in 2010. This statistic has increased from 34 percent of all drug arrests in 1995, which takes into account that 90 percent of those 2010 marijuana arrests were for possession rather than dealing.³ For example: where is the justice between a six-month jail sentence for sexual dancing versus a 12-year sentence in jail for a $31 sale of marijuana?.4 We readily point out the injustice in the former but turn a blind eye to the latter.
We only need to look throughout our history to recognize that the simple act of dancing did not “jive” with our puritan upbringing.5 Instead of being outraged at Cambodia’s current laws against dancing, we can try to imagine what the Netherlands thinks of America’s 800,000 marijuana arrests each and every year. Sadly, I recognize this type of imagination requires Americans take a good, hard look in the mirror. While there, dance as provocatively as your laws allow, but also take the time to acknowledge that your dancing needs practice and your laws need revision.
During a rambling conversation with my friend Jon at the age of 26, I boldly stated that I could save a child’s life in Africa. I claimed to have the resources, agency, and understanding to legitimately save lives. Now, excusing my first world arrogance, that I could have put on my American cape and swooped in and saved lives. Coupled with a severe lack of understanding of global poverty causes. This is the type of thought and expression that when uttered, never fully leaves you. And of course I did not act upon it. This isn’t a 250 page book where I found my calling and took action; while I start my foundation and here we are 5 years later with a triumphant origin story. No, this is an acknowledgement that I have never let this thought go. Is this the typical first world guilt everyone goes through or is this something more? We know that half the world lives on less than $2.50 a day, but then we buy a $12 drink regardless. How do we justify this on the day to day? We can’t. So we ignore it. I’ve been ignoring my conversation with Jon for 5 years and I think it has been slowly growing and festering like a tapeworm – not allowing me to enjoy things fully, not allowing me to be fully present, never being satiated. And yet here I am trying to bury this feeling and enjoy my $12 cabernet.
Creating a profile forces you to define who you are, and how you want people to see you. We project our ideal selves, who we strive to be, the ‘on a good’ day image. Then you meet people based on this ideal of yourself, and each first date acts as a test of are you the person you said you were.
I recently found that I view myself as a hard working, outdoors, ambitious, fit, unconventional guy, but was quickly brought back to reality when my actions did not map to those ideals. This begs the question do I like the actually day to day of this person or just the idea?
But I don’t want this blog post to be a public internal reprimand, (I’ll do that in private) I wanted to share this insight I’ve found from the world of profile dating. Profile dating provides you with an excellent opportunity to define who you are and how you want to be seen and then you run mini experiments to test if those assumptions are valid. It is a good scientist’s wet dream.
You can run test after test with updating your profile and going on additional dates, and continue to update and iterate until you have a firm sense of who you are and how you want to be viewed.
I realized that this process is most people’s only attempt at self-reflection, and that is why it can feel so challenging and difficult to date – because we as humans are terrible at defining who we are and what we want. Most of us have spent more time thinking about if we need to buy toilet paper than what we stand for and who we are as a person.
Going on a first date forces us to define who we are and everything happens in the public eye so we cannot change the outcomes and are forced to look at the results. If we do it in private we can deceive ourselves and influence the information. There is nothing like a ‘thanks for the drink but it’s not going anywhere’ to make you directly face the reality.
Humans have a tremendous capacity for misery. This is deeply rooted in the humans condition for good reason. This is what allowed us to go on living after experiencing WWI trenches and WWII concentration camps. Where we could put up with the worst of humanity and still go on living.
In today’s world, we will never face anything like those types of horrors, and yet our capacity for misery is still there – and we succumb to it. Think about it – time and again we hear stories of the 80 year old saying he didn’t live the life he wanted. Imagine being that 80 year old and for 60+ years not living a life true to yourself. Now that is misery. That is a unique kind of misery where day in and day out you are in a slightly not happy state. Imagine this for 60+ years – dealing with this type of misery. Imagine never really doing what you wanted throughout your entire life, how empty that must feel.
The generation of keep on keeping on, and keep on trucking excelled at dealing with this type of misery – but we need a shift. This is not a call for shucking responsibility, as people love to do. This is a reminder for people to stop putting up with misery – ignore your capacity to be miserable. Instead, embrace a life that cultivates joy and leave misery where it belongs in the trenches.
“Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.“ T Ferriss .
I want to setup a life that has a built in back and forth. Leisure/work – Concentration/idle thoughts. -Travel/home base – Security/vulnerability – Luxury/hardship. It is the juxtaposition of these things that allows us to appreciate life. Every person will have their own flavor of this concept and their own time frame for the right balance. It might be 2 weeks or 2 years but anything beyond basic needs for too long, not only makes the mind dull but it poisons our internal dialogue. We have all heard about how too much of a good thing isn’t good anymore, but we need to stop only applying it to wine and chocolate.
It is the balance that brings us joy.
I have found a revolutionary way to get major company CEOs to work for you! Imagine a hustling, grinding, no life CEO doing all of that for your benefit. Just listen to a CEOs daily schedule, and imagine if this person put in all that effort for you!
Wake up early – usually around 5:00/6:00AM. Check e-mail, respond to any pressing issues so they don’t grow until you get into the office. You might have time for breakfast, but typically skip it to get right in the office and get a handle on the work day. During the commute you mostly handle business calls and respond to additional e-mails. The mornings are a combination of meetings, e-mails, metrics and project updates, and handling any and all emergencies. Lunch is either quickly eaten at the desk or meeting with clients or associates if time permits for lunch hour. The afternoon consists of additional meetings, planning and executing the culture of the business, and being accountable to everything that happens. Typically you leave the office around 6:30 and you try and be home before 8:00. You spend some time with the family and then try and get in another hour or two of work to catch up from earlier in the day. You attempt 6-7 hours of sleep before starting everything again tomorrow. Most weekends you try and disconnect but find by midday Sundays you try and get a jump start on the next work week.
That is a typical day for a CEO of a major company. That is a hard working person. Almost too much, some literally work themselves to death. There is even a word for it in Japanese (karoshi). Here is the kicker. This multi-millionaire can work for you. Yes, you making $30k a year.
Its called the stock market.
Jeff Immelt (the CEO of GE) can work for you (a shareholder) for about $25 out of your pocket. GE stock currently trades around $25 and you own (yes literally) a part of that company. The CEO works for the shareholders. You buy stock in a company and let the CEO do all the work. While you are sitting on couch watching TV the CEO is checking e-mails (working for you). While you are spending time with your family, the CEO is on a conference call with international clients (working for you). While you are relaxing at a happy hour, the CEO is stressing about quarterly revenues (working for you). The more stock you own the more the CEO works for you. Some people take this to the extreme and forcibly remove CEOs because they don’t think they work hard or smart enough for them. Let that sink in – Someone spends almost all their week working for you and while you are sitting on couch can decide they are not doing it right.
I don’t know about you, but I laugh to myself knowing Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerburg, and Elon Musk are all hard at work for me while I relax and watch this cool Youtube video.
It takes a lot of people to make an average. Chances are you’re contributing.
You can’t A/B test your decisions. But why do we try? And agonize over them. And act like we could. We don’t A/B test going to work every day. Imagine how exhausting that would be day after day. Deciding every morning how it would play out and running the probabilities and even if you did – they would still be wrong. No future is entirely in our control, yet we constantly try and convince ourselves otherwise. Acting like we can predict the “best” choice, and know the outcomes.
What I am really trying to say is that all mock drafts are wrong. (NFL Draft Philly 2017)